The Womans Suffrage Movement

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The Womans Suffrage Movement
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What was the Womans Suffrage Movement?

• The right of women to share on equal terms with
  men the political privileges afforded by
  representative government and more particularly
  to vote in elections and referendums and to hold
  public office. The suffrage movement originated
  during the 19th century.

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What were womens rights in Colonial America
before suffrage?

• Civil law did not recognize the equality of men
  and women.
• Women could not vote.
• Women had no right to be heard in matters of law.
• Women were owned by the men in their lives
  husbands, sons, and fathers.
• Women had no control in the outcome of divorce.
• Women were not allowed to attend church if the
  husband allowed.

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Other Movements

• There were various ancillary movements that
  played a role in the genesis of the suffrage
  movement. The beginnings of these ancillary
  movements occurred more than a century prior to
  the 19th century. They were
• The Temperance Movement
• The Abolitionist Movement

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Beginnings of the Womens Suffrage Movement

• Changing social conditions for women during the
  early 1800s , combined with the idea of
  equality, led to the birth of the woman suffrage
  movement.
• Women also started to receive more education.
• Industrialization/Urbanization

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Seneca Falls Convention

• Was one of the first public appeals for woman
  suffrage . Two reformers Lucretia Mott and
  Elizabeth Stanton called a womans right
  convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y. The men and
  women at the convention adopted a Declaration of
  sentiments that called for women to have equal
  rights in education, property,voting, and other
  matters

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Opponents of the Womans suffrage Movement

• Most people who opposed woman suffrage believed
  that women were less intelligent and less able to
  make political decisions than men.
• Opponents argued that men could represent their
  wives better than the wives could represent
  themselves.
• Some feared that womens participation in
  politics would lead to the end of family life.

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Women pioneers for political and social activism

• Mary Church Terrell
• Lucy Stone
• Jane Addams
• Susan B. Anthony
• Elizabeth Scanton

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Growth of the Womens Suffrage Movement

• Woman Suffrage gained strength after the passage
  of the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, which
  gave the vote to black men but not to women.
• In 1869, suffragists formed two national
  organizations to work for the right to vote.
• One was the National Woman Suffrage Association
  and the other was the American Woman Suffrage
  Association.

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Womens Suffrage Movement in other Countries

• Suffrage movement arose in other western
  countries during the 1800s and early 1900s .
• In 1893 New Zealand became the first nation to
  grant women full voting rights.
• Australia gave women the right to vote in
  national elections.
• Britain, Canada, Finland, Germany and Sweden
  enacted suffrage during the early 1900s.

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Women gain the right to vote in the United States

• The womens suffrage movement lasted at least 70
  years before women gained the right to vote.
• The nineteenth Amendment was ratified on August
  26, 1920.
• Women have since gained politically and socially .

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Conclusion

• We must continue the fight and take action.
  Women and girls make up more than 50 of the
  worlds population, but there is still a very few
  of us who are representing our needs.